Tabor Bluejays Mac attacked with road losses- Men’s Results

The Tabor men lost their third straight game Saturday, coming up short on the road against McPher­son College, the KCAC bottom dwellers, 87-80.

The loss leaves the Blue­jays in a tie for sixth place in the KCAC with an 8-6 record and a 9-11 record for the season.

Tabor played the game without the services of Julian Winton, their leading scorer who was nursing an injury. If anything good came out of the game, it was the return of Jordan Hor­stick, who scored 10 points in 19:31 of playing time. Horstick, a starter at the start of the season, injured his knee in December.

Both halves of the game were closely contested, but McPherson held the edge in each one. The Bulldogs led Tabor 32-28 after the first half, then outscored the Bluejays in the second half, 55-52.

Tabor actually edged the home team in shooting percentage, 45 percent (28-62) to 43 percent (28-65) McPher­son. However, the Bulldogs enjoyed a significant edge from behind the arc: 50 percent (12-24) for the home team compared to 25 percent (7-28) by the visiting Blue­jays.

Joining Horstick in double-digit scoring were Alan Urrutia with a team high 12 points, Diontre Cutliff and DeShun Patterson with 11 points each and Jon Beri­stain with 10.

York College—The Tabor College men faced a York College team that played a very similar style of game. It shouldn’t have been surprising that the game went to the wire before the Panthers snatched 94-91 victory from the Blue­jays.

Both teams started slowly, with Tabor leading 11-9 on a 3-point basket by Julian Winton almost 5 minutes into the first half. After a pair of free throws from Alan Urrutia, York countered with a 12-2 run for a 21-15 lead at the 11:36 mark.

York maintained its slim lead until Winton scored on a drive that tied the game at 37 with 3:50 left in the half.

A run by Tabor put the Bluejays ahead 47-39 with 1:09 left in the half. York hit a pair of free throws and Patrick Burnett nailed a 3-point basket at the buzzer to pull the Panthers to within 47-46 at intermission.

In the second half, the Panthers led by as much as 66-59 with just under 12 minutes to go. But Tabor got a pair of baskets from Diontre Cutliff and a 3-point play from DeShun Patterson with 8:45 left to close York’s lead to 68-66.

The neck-and-neck battle continued down the stretch until a short burst by York put the Panthers on top, 85-79, with 1:45 to play.

With Tabor trailing 90-86 and only 17.2 second left, Kyle Baker hit a huge 3-pointer with 11 seconds left to pull Tabor to within 90-89. But when Tabor fouled to regain possession, York hit four free throws in the final eight seconds to nail down the twin.

“There’s a lot of stuff on here that’s really good,” said coach Micah Ratzlaff referring to the game summary. “The biggest things was turn­overs, including the stretch when we had back-to-back, turn­overs and they hit shots. That hurt, but we battled back and tied it.”

Winton and Patterson led Tabor’s attack with 22 and 21 points, respectively. Gaven Schumann and Diontre Cutliff each added 12. As a team, Tabor shot 52 percent (34-65) from the floor while York shot 43 percent (29-67). With the loss, Tabor slipped to 8-5 in the conference and 9-10 overall.

Coming—The Tabor men will play Bethel College (4-10, 6-15) at North Newton Wednesday, Jan. 24, with an 8 p.m. start. On Saturday, the Bluejays will host Friends Uni­versity (9-5, 11-10), with a 5 p.m. tip-off.

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